A Sunday With Purple Zombies And Deceitful Politicians

January 26, 2015February 3, 2015 / Ally Bean / 18 Comments

This morning is the first time this month that it has looked like winter outside. There’s a dusting of white snow but it isn’t deep enough to cover the tops of the green grass blades.

I’m not surprised to see the snow this morning. All day yesterday the TV weather forecasters were babbling about Monday’s SNOW! SNOW! SNOW!

You know how they get.

So yesterday, while anticipating this snowy Monday morning, we decided to spend the day at home getting the bounce back in our pounce. Which is to say that we, two adults without children, played a board game and binge-watched a TV show.

# # #

We purchased our game on Saturday while shopping at an outlet mall. We wandered into a toy and game store where I found a board game version of RISK. Subtitled: THE GAME OF SUBURBAN DOMINATION. Further sub-titled: PLANTS VS. ZOMBIES.

How cute is that?

So we bought the game and decided to make it our Sunday goal to learn how to play one of the three games available within the box. We went with the easiest game in the box that I’d describe as a mixture of Chess, Jumanji, You Sunk My Battle Ship, Backgammon and Football. It’s not all that Risk-like, but oh is it entertaining to play!

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In-between learning how to play (or in my case lose) our new game, we watched House of Cards [American version]. I am totally smitten with this show, that I’d ignored until a few weeks ago when Kevin Spacey won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a TV Drama.

Now, having watched 6 episodes of House of Cards, I’m fascinated by Francis and Claire. They are amazing sociopathic characters. I cannot imagine what deceitful, immoral, unethical, sneaky, conniving, manipulative, under-handed thing either of them will do next.

With a unpredictable plot line and a narrative arc like no other, this show is fun to watch; especially, if you happen to have had any experiences, unfortunate or otherwise, with people like Francis and Claire.

Just saying.

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So what did you, my gentle readers, do this past weekend?

Were you productive? Were you healthful? Or, were you homebodies, like us, who played games and watched TV?

Spill the beans in the comments below.

In Which We Learn Whether Or Not I Can Upload A Photo & Then Write About It

October 30, 2014August 29, 2018 / Ally Bean / 22 Comments

Let’s pretend that my last post didn’t happen. Okay?

Which is to say that if you’ve arrived here expecting to see a post about me having lunch, I deleted it. The post, not lunch.

I didn’t delete the post because I said anything bad, but because the photos, which made the post interesting, looked hazy. Not pretty.

In fact, when I uploaded them yesterday the WP system wouldn’t let me upload them in the normal way. I had to revert to an older way of uploading photos to get them here.

And once here, not so clear.

So now, today, this very morning, I decided to upload a test photo to see how the WP system is working today and to see how my photo looked.

And wouldn’t you know it, today’s photo, of two of my mother’s old recipe booklets that I keep in one of my desk drawers, is the epitome of clarity. And coconut.

Thus proving that I’m tenacious, I can upload photos, I can write a post of the fly, and that I’ve kept some rather unique items that belonged to my mother.

For no discernible reason. Which seems to be the theme of this post.

Of Cemeteries, Segways & Common Sense

October 21, 2014July 1, 2025 / Ally Bean / 24 Comments

A friend convinced me that it would be a great idea for us to rent Segways and then move through a large cemetery known for its unique tombstones and mausoleums.

We’d be doing this at sunset on an evening when the cemetery closed all the roads to car traffic and encouraged visitors to walk, run, bike, move through the roads.

I hesitated because I’d never ridden on a Segway, but I loved the idea of seeing this cemetery, known for its history, on a more personal level. So I said “yes.”

At first I doubted whether I’d be able to master a Segway, but I did. Sort of. Or at least I did enough to be allowed by the rental company to go move around a cemetery without car traffic.

• • •

If you’ve not been on a Segway, there are 3 things I learned:

1) You have to stand completely still on the device, with your feet locked into a perfectly aligned specific place, or you’ll cause the gyroscopes to reposition you. This means that if you do shift your feet at all, the Segway wiggles underneath you. Uncontrollably.

SO DON’T MOVE YOUR FEET, EVEN ONCE, WHILE ON IT.

2) Going up hills on a Segway is easy to do because all you do is lean forward. [MSNBC would approve.] Going down hills is more difficult because you have to lean back while never moving your feet, yet while softening your knees, so that the impact of any hole in the road doesn’t cause you trouble.

THIS IS NOT AS SIMPLE TO DO AS THE INSTRUCTORS SUGGEST THAT IT IS.

3) Turning a Segway is an unnatural skill that is nothing like driving a car or maneuvering a bicycle. While I was able to easily do it in large movements, such as turning right or left at a 4-way intersection, it was difficult to do on a smaller scale, such as wandering over to look a specific object. In fact, at one point the machine stopped responding to me altogether and took over steering so that I was thrown from it.

YES, I WAS THROWN OFF OF A SEGWAY ONTO THE GROUND BECAUSE IT INSISTED THAT WE WERE GOING TO THE RIGHT WHEN I TOLD IT TO GO TO THE LEFT.

• • •

So did I have a good time on our adventure through the cemetery? Well, to be honest, not really.

I mean I enjoyed spending time with my friend and we did cover a lot of ground in the cemetery, but we weren’t able to see any tombstones or mausoleums up-close because once on a Segway you’re stuck there.

And because it doesn’t go onto grassy areas many of the monuments we wanted to explore were way too far away to get to, let alone photograph. So the whole adventure seemed pointless to us.

Common sense suggests to me that I wouldn’t rent one again unless (maybe) it was part of a guided tour on paved paths (perhaps in a well manicured city park?) that were far away from car traffic. And even then, I might just pass on the whole Segway thing and go for a walk by myself.

It really wasn’t much fun at all. Not recommended.

3 Simple Examples Of Cause & Effect Explained With Photos

October 2, 2014October 2, 2014 / Ally Bean / 18 Comments

CAUSE: Neighbor’s sweet kitty cat who likes to enjoy an afternoon nap in the sun along the edge of our terrace next to the woods behind the house.